


Momentary Thing

by hannasus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Competence Porn, Drunk Felicity, F/M, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Oliver doesn't kiss Felicity and one time he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Need anything else before I go?” Felicity asks.

Oliver glances up from the computer screen and sucks in a breath. She looks … beautiful. She’s changed out of her work clothes, into a dress that’s softer and prettier than the one she was wearing before, and exchanged her glasses for contacts. Her hair’s down, too, falling in soft waves around her face, and it makes his chest feel tight. He doesn’t often get to see her with her hair down, and every single time he’s struck anew by how different she looks.

It’s easier to let himself forget, when they’re focused on the work and she’s hidden behind her glasses and her ponytail, just how beautiful she is.

“You’re going out?” he says, realizing too late that it sounds like an accusation.

She presses her lips together, giving him a tight smile. “Remember before when I told you I had plans tonight?”

“Right, of course.” He doesn’t remember, actually. Probably because he wasn’t listening. He doesn’t listen to her enough. Doesn’t look at her enough. Doesn’t appreciate her nearly as much as she deserves.

“So,” she says, lifting her eyebrows. “Unless there’s anything else?”

“Nope,” he says, forcing a smile. “Have a good time on your … ” The sentence dies in his mouth. If he’d been listening he would probably know where she was going.

“Date,” she finishes for him, almost challenging.

Of course it’s a date. Where else would she be going looking this beautiful? He feels an unwarranted stir of jealousy. He has no claim on her, he knows this in every reasonable, rational part of his brain. But just for a moment, just for _this_ moment, he wants to be the man she’s dressed up for tonight.

“Lucky guy,” he says, before he can stop himself.

She flushes slightly and ducks her head. “I just need to get my, uh … ” She gestures at him. “My purse.”

He’s sitting in her chair, and her purse is on the desk beside him. He pushes himself back so she can reach it.

Her hip brushes against his arm as she leans across him to retrieve her bag. She’s wearing perfume, something floral and intoxicating, and he closes his eyes, just for a second, and breathes deep. She’s so close he can feel the warmth radiating off her body.

And then she’s not anymore. She straightens and takes a step back, her bag tucked under her arm. “Well, goodnight,” she says, looking down at him.

He could kiss her, he thinks. Right now, right here. He could stand up and cup her face in his hands and draw her mouth to his. It would be exactly that easy. He doesn’t even think it would be unwelcome. He could convince her to stay, maybe. He could become the man she’s dressed up for tonight.

He doesn’t stand up. Doesn’t kiss her. “Goodnight, Felicity,” he says, and lets her go.


	2. Chapter 2

“Oliver! What are you doing here?” Felicity blurts when she opens the door—which is not precisely the reaction he was going for.

Too late, it occurs to him that he maybe shouldn’t have come, that he’s intruding. That she might prefer he stayed away and left her in peace. _Well shit,_ he thinks. He’s here now, standing on her doormat like a fool. It’s too late for take-backs.

He plasters on a smile and holds up the paper bag in his hand. “I brought you some soup.”

She stares at him in what is clearly disbelief. “Really?” She’s dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe, her nose is bright red, and there’s a wad of tissues clutched in her hand. Even with the flu, she’s beautiful enough to make him feel breathless.

“Really,” he says, pressing the bag on her. “It’s chicken noodle.”

She stares at it like he just handed her a bomb. “Did you _make_ it?”

He laughs, shaking his head. “No, I did not make it. It’s from that deli you like downtown.”

“Oh! That’s really nice of you. Awesome, actually.”

“Try not to seem so surprised.”

“Sorry!” She sniffles and wipes her nose with the tissue. “Sorry, I just—wouldn’t have guessed Oliver Queen was a bring-you-soup-when-you’re-sick kind of guy.”

He shrugs. “I contain multitudes.”

“Clearly.” She smiles at him. “Do you want to come in?” she asks, holding the door open wider.

He hesitates. “I don’t want to barge in on you when you’re sick.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been cooped up alone in this apartment for two days. I’m starting to talk to the throw cushions.” She seizes his arm and tugs him inside. “ _Please._ Come in and keep me company. I even promise not to sneeze on you.”

He steps into the living room and looks around. The floor near the couch is littered with wads of used tissue and the television is on, paused on some kind of historical drama. Women in bonnets and men in top hats and riding boots.

“Sorry about the mess,” she says, hastily scooping up the dirty tissues and dumping them in the wastebasket.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, because he really could not care less about the cleanliness of her apartment. “How are you feeling?” She hasn’t come in for two days, and things are already starting to fall apart without her. It’s been a little shocking to realize how much he’s come to depend on her, how much he misses her when she’s not around—and not just because she keeps everything running smoothly. These last couple of days it’s been her company he’s found himself missing as much as her competence.

“Like I have the flu,” she says, carrying the soup into the kitchen. “Which is to be expected, I guess, since I actually, you know, _have_ the flu.” She starts coughing as she’s getting a mug down from the cabinet. And she keeps coughing: deep, rattling coughs that leave her bent over, one hand clutching the counter to brace herself and the other curled around her abdomen.

“Felicty,” he says, moving to her side. His hand settles on her back, and he can feel her body shaking as her lungs heave for air.

“I’m fine,” she rasps.

“You don’t sound fine. Have been to the doctor?”

She shakes her head. “It’s just a cold, Oliver. Really.”

“Do you have a fever?” he asks, and he’s leaning toward her even before he realizes what he’s doing. He almost doesn’t stop himself in time—his lips nearly make it to her forehead. It’s how his mother always used to check if he and Thea had a fever: with a kiss. At the last second he veers away and presses his palm to her brow instead.

“What’s the verdict, doc?” she asks, the corner of her mouth dimpling.

He pulls his hand away. “You feel okay.”

“Told you,” she says, but then she starts coughing again.

He waits out the coughing fit and then steers her into the living room.“Go sit down. I’ll bring the soup to you.”

“Thank you,” she says, sinking onto the couch and pulling a blanket over her lap. “I guess I’m kind of a mess.”

He pours the soup into a mug and reheats it in the microwave. When it’s ready he carries it over to her.

“You’re amazing,” she says, inhaling the steam curling off the surface.

He cringes a little, because he is not amazing and he knows it. _She’s_ the one who spends most of her time taking care of the rest of them, making sure they’re safe, making everything easier just by being there. Soup is the absolute least he can do in return for all she does for him.

She pats the couch beside her. “Sit.”

He sits. She’s got her legs tucked beneath her and her feet are poking out from underneath the blanket. Her toes are painted baby blue, like robin’s eggs. “What are you watching?” he asks, because it’s safer to look at the TV than at her bare feet beside him on the couch.

“ _Pride and Prejudice—_ the Colin Firth one, obviously, not the Keira Knightley. My mom and I always watched it together when I was sick. It’s like my comfort food.”

“Don’t let me interrupt you.”

She blinks at him over the top of her mug. “ _You_ want to watch _Pride and Prejudice?_ ”

He meets her gaze levelly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Right,” she says, laughing. “Multitudes. I forgot.”

She digs the remote out of the couch and unpauses the movie. They sit and watch it together while she eats her soup. Oliver’s pretty sure he’s seen it before, actually, or parts of it, anyway. He has vague memories of Thea watching it when she was a kid.

When she’s done with her soup Felicity lays back and stretches out lengthwise along the couch. She props her feet up on his leg. “Is this okay?” she asks, nudging him with her toes.

“It’s fine,” he says. He feels strangely peaceful. Content just to be here with her, sharing something she loves. Taking care of _her_ for a change. “You need anything?”

“Nope.” She smiles at him and sighs happily. “This is perfect.”

He lets himself smile back, because it kind of is.


	3. Chapter 3

“ _Dammit!_ ” Oliver shouts, slowing from a sprint to a trot as the van tears around a corner, out of range of his arrows. “They got away. Weeks of tracking these guys and I just let them _get away._ ” He wants to punch something, but there’s nothing nearby to hit, which is probably just as well.

“Cool your britches,” Felicity says over comms. “They haven’t gotten away yet.”

“My _what?_ ” Oliver growls.

“Uhh ... Nothing? I definitely did not just reference the temperature of your nether … region … coverings,” she stammers, and he almost sort of smiles picturing the blush that is probably coloring her cheeks right now. “What I _meant t_ o say was stay there, because we’re coming to get you.”

“How far out are you?” Because last he heard they were still at the Foundry, which is at least ten minutes away.

“Don’t worry about it,” Felicity says, her voice clipped, the way it gets when she’s concentrating on something other than talking to him.

Oliver waits. A minute. Two minutes. Four. He does the math in his head, calculating how far away the van could be by then, how many twists and turns it could have taken, how impossible it will be to catch up to them in the maze of the city.

“Felicity—”

“Almost there.”

“It’s too late,” he says, sighing. “They’re long gone by now.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

He turns and starts walking back into the building, hoping maybe he can find some clue inside that will lead him to their hideout, or maybe point to where they’ll strike next. “I appreciate the effort, but—”

“I said stay there,” she snaps.

Oliver looks up and spots the security camera pointed at him on a nearby building. He shakes his head at the camera, knowing that she can see him.

“Oliver Queen, when are you going to learn to trust me?” she says, just as he hears the sound of a car approaching.

Diggle screeches to a stop alongside him and Felicity throws open the door. Oliver jumps into the backseat with her and pulls the door shut as Diggle throws the car into gear and hauls ass after the van.

Felicity’s got her laptop out and she’s typing furiously on the keyboard. “Right at the next intersection, then a left on Park,” she tells Diggle.

Oliver leans over to look at her screen. “You’re using the traffic cameras to track them,” he says. “That’s smart, but they’ve still got a five-minute head start on us.”

“Mmmhmm,” she agrees without looking up. “If only you knew someone who could hack into the Starling City traffic control system.”

Oliver looks up and realizes that all the traffic lights ahead are conveniently turning green just before they reach each intersection. And something tells him that the lights ahead of the van they’re chasing are all turning inconveniently red. They might actually catch these guys after all—thanks to Felicity.

He lets himself relax a little, sinking back into the seat while she directs Diggle through the city. Oliver loves watching her when she’s working like this. Loves how focused she is, how fast her brightly-painted fingers fly over keys, how she’s able to juggle ten tasks at once without breaking stride. The way she unconsciously bites her bottom lip when she’s concentrating. And the little crease that appears in her forehead—god, he _really_ loves that little crease.

“Hang on,” Diggle warns as he navigates a sharp corner at speed.

Oliver’s shoulder bumps against Felicity’s. She looks up at him and smiles, briefly, before turning her attention back to her computer. Instead of scooting away, Oliver leans closer, his head almost resting on her shoulder so he can watch her screen. “They’re heading out of town,” he says, peering the map.

“Actually, they’re being _herded_ out of town,” she says. “I figure there’s less chance of civilian involvement if we catch up to them in a low population area, so I created a few minor traffic jams to discourage them from driving back toward the city.”

He’s impressed. And a little ashamed to admit that it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him to lure them away from the city. “Felicity, that’s—”

“Brilliant?” She looks up at him again and smiles. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He beams at her, wondering how he ever thought he could do any of this without her. When she turns back to her computer Diggle catches Oliver’s eye in the rear-view mirror and gives him a knowing smirk. Dig’s always been able to see right through him, and Oliver doesn’t like feeling so transparent—doesn’t want to think about the conclusions that Diggle’s probably drawing in his head. He shifts away from Felicity and turns to look out the window.

A minute later, they’re in a semi-deserted industrial area on the outskirts of town, and the van Oliver thought was surely long gone is in sight, only a few blocks ahead of them. “Try to get alongside them,” he tells Diggle, leaning forward. It’ll be tricky, but he thinks he can make the jump to the van.

“Don’t bother,” Felicity says without looking up from her computer. “Just keep them in sight, but don’t get too close.”

Diggle shrugs and does as she says, and Oliver wonders when exactly he stopped being the one in charge of his own team. “How are you planning to get them to stop?” he asks Felicity.

“You know all those handy features cars come with like remote entry, GPS, and anti-theft systems?” she says as she’s typing in a complicated string of code. “Did you know they’re all connected to the cellular network and assigned a unique phone number? Which means I can use a sniffer to detect cellular traffic around the vehicle, figure out that unique phone number, and then use it to take control of all the onboard computer systems.”

“Are you saying you can cut the engine remotely?”

“Cut the engine, lock the doors, set off the car alarm.” The corner of her mouth dimples into a grin. “If I wanted, I could have that van send you a friend request on Facebook.”

Ahead of them, the van begins to slow, and rolls harmlessly to a stop in the middle of the road. Dig pulls the car over and Oliver starts to get out, but Felicity’s hand on his arm stops him. “They’re locked in and the police are two minutes out. All we have to do is wait for them to show up and find all the evidence in that back of that van.”

Oliver shakes his head, rendered momentarily speechless in awe of her. She’s smiling so wide, her eyes bright and her lips glistening in the glare from the streetlights, all he can think about is cupping her face in his hand and kissing her. But Diggle’s right there in the front seat, and even if they were alone, Oliver knows doesn’t have the right to kiss her.

But he wants to. Oh, how he wants to.


	4. Chapter 4

The drinking was Roy’s idea. They work directly beneath a nightclub, he pointed out, they should make better use of it. And they’d had a rare good day, a reason to celebrate, so everyone was in the mood to go along with it.

There were shots. And martinis. And more shots. Not for Oliver, who can’t afford to let himself relax that much anymore, but for the others. And it was fun, actually, seeing everyone cut loose. Seeing them all together and enjoying themselves for a couple of hours. But then Diggle went home to Lyla, and Roy and Thea disappeared to do … things that were best not contemplated.

Which left Oliver to drive Felicity home.

“You’re cute when you’re drunk,” Felicity says, settling her head on his shoulder.

He bites back a smile, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “I’mnot the one who’s drunk.”

“Well then you’re cute when _I’m_ drunk,” she says, nestling even closer. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. She probably won’t even remember this tomorrow.

By the time they get to her apartment she’s snoring softly against his arm. He parks the car and gently moves her off of his shoulder before getting out and going around to her side. She’s still sound asleep when he opens the passenger door. She looks peaceful, but also vulnerable. He doesn’t like to see her vulnerable.

He touches her arm. “Felicity.” Nothing. He squeezes her shoulder and says her name again, a little louder.

She stirs and opens her eyes, blinking up at him sleepily. “Wuh?”

“We’re home. Think you can walk?”

“’Course.” She lurches out of the car and comes perilously close to faceplanting on the front lawn. His hand shoots out to grab her before she can fall.

“Easy, hotshot.” He wraps his arm around her waist to steady her. She leans into him with a sigh and lets him guide her up the steps to the front door. Her hair smells like coconuts. Not that he’s trying to smell it. He definitely does not press his face into the top of her head so he can smell her hair. That would be wrong.

It takes her a minute to dig her keys out of her purse, and another minute to find the right key. She drops them—twice—before he finally takes them away and unlocks the door himself.

She stumbles across the threshold and flips on the light, dropping her purse onto the floor as she staggers across the living room. He hesitates, and then follows her inside, shutting the door behind him. He retrieves her purse from the floor and sets it on the table in the entryway. It’s expensive, and he doesn’t think she’d want it lying on the floor.

By then she’s disappeared into the bedroom. “Felicity?” he calls uncertainly. She doesn’t answer. He makes his way through the living room, stepping over the shoes she kicked off, and cautiously peers into the bedroom. She’s lying on the bed with her legs hanging off and her arms outstretched above her head, like she sat down and then just fell over backwards. “Felicity?” he says again. “You okay?”

She holds up a hand and waves it at him. “C’mere.”

He moves into the room. When he gets to the bed she surges upright and curls her hands into his shirtfront. “Um,” he says, alarmed. “Hey.”

She leans into him, turning her head so that her cheek is pressed against his stomach. “You feel nice,” she mumbles into his shirt. “Nice and solid.”

He can’t help but smile, even though he knows it’s just the alcohol talking. “Thanks?” Her hands slide around his torso and then down, coming to rest on his ass. “Felicity!” he says, grabbing her hands and removing them from his ass. He _really_ hopes she doesn’t remember this tomorrow.

“Hmm?” Her head tilts back. She gazes up him through her lashes, her tongue darting out to wet her lips as she leans subtly toward him.

Oliver swallows, because— _fuck._ Because it’s Felicity, and because of the way she’s looking at him right now. He’s momentarily paralyzed—terrified she’s going to kiss him, but unable to do anything about it because there’s a part of him that desperately wants her to. That aches for it, even though he knows it would be wrong. The wrongest of wrong things that are wrong.

She lowers her head and presses her forehead against his stomach. “The room’s spinning.”

He lets out the breath he was holding. “Yeah, it tends to do that after five flaming lemon drops.” He puts his hands on her shoulders and gently pushes her away. “Stay here, I’ll get you some water.”

In the kitchen, he splashes cold water on his face and then fills a glass. He carries it into the bedroom and makes her drink the whole thing down.

“Feel better?” he asks.

She nods and then lays back on the bed, curling up on her side. “Think I’m gonna sleep now,” she mumbles, closing her eyes.

He carries the glass into the bathroom to refill it. In the medicine cabinet he finds a bottle of ibuprofen and he takes that and water back into the bedroom. “Felicity?” he says softly. There’s no response. She’s already fast asleep.

He leaves the water and the ibuprofen on the nightstand so they’ll be there for her when she wakes up. Then he slips her glasses off, folds them, and sets them beside the water.

He briefly considers trying to get her changed into something more comfortable for sleeping—there’s a pile of discarded clothes on the floor that look like they might be pajamas, but he’s pretty certain that’d be crossing the line from chivalrous into creepy. She’s just going to have to sleep in her dress.

There’s a quilt folded at the foot of the bed, however, and he covers her up with it, carefully tucking it around her shoulders and under her chin, because he doesn’t want her catching a chill in the middle of the night. For a minute he just stands there, watching her breathe. Remembering the feel of her arms around him. Her lips are parted, her breathing slow and even. A wisp of hair has slipped free of her ponytail and fallen across her face. It flutters softly with every exhalation.

He’s overwhelmed by an urge to bend down and kiss her, like she’s Sleeping Beauty he’s her prince. He is not her prince, though, he knows that much. And they sure as hell don’t live in a fairytale, even if she _is_ a sleeping beauty.

He settles for brushing the hair off her face. And if his fingers happen to linger on her cheek longer than is strictly necessary to displace a single lock of hair, well, who can blame him? In the tally of all his sins, this one, he hopes, is a transgression small enough to be forgiven.

 


	5. Chapter 5

He’s trying, god, he’s trying so hard to do the right thing. If only he could make her see that.

“ _What_ were you thinking?” Felicity shouts—actually _shouts_ at him. Because she is furious, and it’s all his fault.

“I was saving you,” Oliver says quietly.

“You don’t get to do that!” she says, storming up to him and moving into his space, so close that their faces are only inches apart, so that he can feel her breath on his lips.

This is the problem, he thinks. She plays dirty. Well, he can play dirty, too. He proved that tonight. “What? Save you?” he retorts, more smugly than is probably advisable under the current circumstances. “Actually I do. It’s sort of my whole thing.”

“Not like this. Not by lying to me. You sent me on a wild goose chase instead of letting me do my job!”

“I did what I needed to do to keep you safe.” And he’s not sorry, not even a little bit, which is the real reason she’s so angry right now. Because he won’t apologize, and because she knows he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“ _Oliver._ ”

“Felicity.”

If only he didn’t find her so damn attractive when she’s all fired up like this. The madder she is at him, the more he aches for her. He can feel himself getting hard and it’s taking all his willpower not to push her up against the wall and try to kiss the anger out of her. God, it would be so hot. And the sex— _fuck._ He feels weak just thinking about what the sex could be like.

“You always do this,” she says through gritted teeth.

He swallows down the urge to kiss her. “Do what?” he says, even though he knows exactly what it is that he does.

“Run away.” And she’s not talking about tonight anymore. She’s talking about everything that’s led up to tonight.

He reaches for her but she flinches away. “Don’t—”

“Felicity—”

“ _No._ You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to touch me like I mean something to you.”

She might as well have slapped him. He closes his eyes, trying to get control of himself. “You _do_ mean something to me, you mean everything to me.”

“Not enough,” she says, her voice low and shaky. “Not enough for you to fight for me.”

It’s like a knife between his ribs. How can she not know how much he loves her? That was the one thing he was sure of, that she knew how he felt about her …

“You don’t understand,” he says, pleading now and a little desperate. “I gave you up to keep you safe. If you’re not safe then what was the point?” His voice breaks a little on the last few words, because he’s starting to panic. He thought this was just another argument, but it feels bigger than that, and he’s not ready for it.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” she shoots back. “You can’t keep me safe, Oliver. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to guarantee my safety, through either your absence or your proximity. So all you’re really doing is breaking my heart, over and over again.”

This is all wrong. It isn’t supposed to go like this. He starts to reach for her again, but stops himself just in time. It’s instinctual, the urge to touch her. To comfort her. She’s his touchstone, he relies on that contact with her to ground him, and also to express the things he can’t put into words. And yet on some level he knows she’s right—it isn’t fair to either them. It’s a promise that can never be fulfilled.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Felicity. Ever.” It’s not an admission of guilt, but it’s something.

She shakes her head, backing away from him. “You’re just another man who said he loved me and then walked away.”

“Felicity—”

But he’s too late. She’s already gone.


	6. Chapter 6

“Oliver! Oh my god, your face!” Felicity exclaims, rushing toward him.

“It looks worse than it feels,” he tells her, which is a lie—it hurts like a sonofabitch—but she’s scared and he doesn’t want her to have to worry about him anymore. He opens his arms and she falls into them, burying her face in his chest. “I’m okay,” he says, resting his chin on top of her head. “Really.”

It would probably be a little more convincing without the hiss of pain that inadvertently slips out when she squeezes his ribs.

She pulls away. “What’s wrong?” she asks, frowning and anxious again.

“I may have gotten a little bit stabbed,” he admits.

“Stabbed” she says, her voice rising. “A _little bit_ stabbed? Are you kidding me right now?” She punches him in the shoulder.

“Ow!” he winces, because he sort of landed badly on that shoulder at one point, and it’s not feeling super great either.

“Is that all?” she asks, her hands moving protectively over his face, his arms, his chest, checking for more injuries. “Any gunshot wounds hiding under there you want to tell me about, buster?”

“That’s the worst of it,” he promises.

“This time,” she mutters as she starts to go for the first aid kit.

He wraps his fingers around her wrist, catching her before she can move away. “I’m fine, Felicity.” He squeezes. “Okay?”

She presses her lips together and nods. He can see her biting back her fear for his sake, and he loves her for it, so fiercely it steals the breath from his lungs. It took him way too long to appreciate what she goes through: sending him into danger every night and waiting for him to come back to her, wondering what kind of shape he’s going to be in when he comes back—or if he’s going to come back at all. But he finally gets it now.

He’s seen her with a madman at her throat, with a blade held against her neck, with blood running into her eyes, and it absolutely wrecked him. It scared him so badly he almost made the biggest mistake of his life. It made him so afraid of losing her that he tried to push her away. Sometimes he can’t believe how fucking stupid he is.

He knows this much is true: Felicity is braver than he will ever be, because she lives through hell every time he puts on the hood and she never complains, never tries to stop him, never lets her fear make her choices for her.

God, he loves her. What’s even more amazing is that she loves him back. More than he can ever hope to deserve.

She brings the med kit over and helps him out of his jacket, exposing the stab wound in his side. “See, it’s not even deep,” he says. “It’s practically a graze.”

“You think it needs stitches?” she asks, frowning as she cleans the blood away.

He shakes his head. “Butterfly bandages will be good enough.”

She finishes with the knife wound and moves on to his face, tenderly cleaning away the blood and bits of asphalt with a skill learned over the course of far too many nights like this one. “Your poor, beautiful face,” she murmurs, tilting his jaw for a better angle.

“Ugh,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t say it like that.”

She smiles softly. “But you are beautiful. Like you were sculpted by Michelangelo.”

“No,” he says seriously. “ _You’re_ beautiful. I’m just the idiot who’s lucky enough to be your boyfriend.”

It earns him another smile, even wider this time. “If you’re trying to flatter me so I won’t be mad at you for getting yourself hurt,” she says, dabbing at his face with a styptic swab, “it’s working. Please carry on.”

A wave of tenderness rumbles up from breastbone, leaving him giddy in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion or blood loss. “I love you, Felicity. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” What a lovesick ruin he has become.

Her mouth twists. “Okay, well now you’re maybe laying it on a little thick.”

He leans in to kiss her, because he can, and because it’s a pleasure he denied himself for too long—but she twists away to rummage through the medical supplies.

“Felicity,” he says impatiently.

“Hmmm,” she answers, distracted.

“Come here.”

She turns and blinks at him. “What? Why?”

“Because I’m trying to kiss you.”

She jerks away, which is the exact opposite of what he’s trying to achieve. “Your face,” she protests.

He huffs out a breath in frustration. “My face will be fine.”

Her lips draw into a pout—a very cute pout that he wants to devour. “I’ll hurt you.”

“You won’t.” He reaches for her hand and tugs her closer, his fingers twinning with hers.

“Oliver,” she breathes.

“Felicity, please just let me kiss you and I promise it will be okay.”

She does. And it is.


End file.
